Darcy Meyers
Memphis, Tennessee
More than three years later—Christmas time
I loved the letter O.
I loved the shape of it—the way it was one big continual curve with no beginning and no end. It was easily my favorite letter in the alphabet.
Ever since I was a kid, I would find myself doodling the letter O. Sometimes I would make them simple and other times I would draw ornate designs around them as if they were the first letter in an old book—like the O from Once upon a time.
My infatuation with the letter began long ago and stemmed from a crush I had on a boy named Owen Bishop. I would doodle his name when I was in junior high, and through those doodles, I developed a fondness for the letter itself. There was another word that began with the letter O that often popped up in my mind, and that was the word overcome.
Way back when I was in middle school, when Owen Bishop first came back after his accident, I heard one of my teachers describe him as an overcomer. I had no idea what the word meant at the time. I was protective of Owen, and I actually thought she might be offending him in some way, so I locked the word in my mind, and when I got home from school that day, I looked it up in the dictionary.
I learned that my teacher was paying him a great compliment. The dictionary informed me that 'an overcomer' was someone who succeeds in dealing with or gaining control of some problem or difficulty. To overcome something was to get the better of it, to gain control, to master, conquer, or defeat your problem, to prevail, to triumph over hardship.
I instantly loved the word and knew my teacher had perfectly succeeded in describing Owen. He was an overcomer, and it was perhaps what I loved most about him. I wanted the word to define me also, and I found myself, over the years, repeating it as a mantra when I was in a difficult situation. When I was doing something hard—something I wanted to quit, I would tell myself overcome this, Darcy, overcome, overcome. It was a word I had said to myself hundreds of times over the years, and yet another reason why I loved the letter O.
I was thinking about the letter O at that very moment because several of them were in plain view on the sheet music that was being held by the guy next to me. We sang the lyrics to the popular Christmas song.
O come let us adore Him,
O come let us adore Him,
O come let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord!
I was halfway through my senior year of college and I had come home to Memphis for the holidays. It was two days before Christmas, and I had a friend from high school named Kacie Newman who roped me into going caroling with a group of thirty or so people from her church.
We met at one of their houses and set off on foot, going around the neighborhood, knocking on doors and singing a song or two at each house. This was the second house, and we were singing to a few people who all looked to be in their forties or fifties. I thought I recognized them as the parents of some kids that had gone to my high school.
It's funny how your mind can do so many things at once. I was singing the lyrics to the song as I considered those repeating O's written on the page. They made me think of Owen Bishop, and then the word overcome. I remembered how many times I had absentmindedly doodled O's on the side of my homework. And while I was singing and those thoughts were swirling around in my head, I glanced up and saw him.
It wasn't his house, so at first, I thought I must be dreaming. There were three people at the door when we first began singing, but others came to join them, and Owen Bishop was with the second group. There was no mistaking that it was him—his face was etched into my mind.
He had matured in the years since I last saw him. His hair had grown out a little bit, and he had some facial hair that hadn't been there in the past. It was Owen, though. He was standing there, plain as day, smiling like the rest of them as if he were pleasantly surprised to hear carolers at the door.
He didn’t see me.
I knew by the way he gazed at all of our faces that he wasn't really taking us in as individuals but rather enjoying watching the group. I tried to keep singing, but I was so taken off guard by seeing Owen, that I felt confused and flustered.
I did what any reasonable person would do.
I ducked.
I skillfully slipped behind the guy standing next to me so that Owen could no longer see me. My friend Kacie glanced at me curiously when she felt me move, but I pretended not to notice. I just kept staring toward the front door and singing from my new spot where my view of Owen Bishop was completely obstructed.
I was so shaken that I barely recall singing the rest of the song. Before I knew what was happening, we were singing Jingle Bells, and the next thing I knew we were collectively walking away, headed for the next house. The homeowners had clapped for us after we sang the second song, but I never again looked at Owen. I just couldn’t do it. The rush of nerves and emotions that hit me at the sight of him was too much.
I had on a thick beanie with a scarf and gloves, and I ripped off the hat, loosening the scarf as we headed to the next house.
"What are you doing?" Kacie asked, staring at me like I had lost my mind. "It's freezing out here."
"I know, but I just got a heat wave standing with all those people," I said, unzipping my jacket halfway.
Kacie put her fist up to her face like she was freezing and continued to look at me like a crazy person as we walked. "We should have done another song at that house," Kacie said. "There were like ten people standing at the door before we left. Did you see that? I bet no other house we go to has that many. It was Andy and Abby Carter's parents' house," she continued. "They had a bunch of people over there. They must have been having a party or something. Andy got married to Layla Benson; remember her? I saw Shelby and Liam Kennedy over there, too. And Owen Bishop. I think one of them is dating Abby. I saw them all out at The Rendezvous a few weeks ago. Shelby and Abby are really good friends. Shelby works over at WMC News doing hair and makeup for the newscasters. Remember when you used to have a big crush on Owen for like five years?"
Kacie was spouting off facts left and right, and again, I loosened my scarf, feeling like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. I was completely overheated and felt like I needed to take my jacket off. I mumbled something about vaguely remembering the crush Kacie referred to as I fanned my face with my beanie. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was aware that she had just said something about the possibility of Owen dating Abby Carter in that monologue of hers, but I tried to block it out.
By this time, we were standing in formation at the next house. I was dazed, but there were so many of us, that the others just shoved me into position. The guy leading us went forward to ring their doorbell, and Kacie glanced at me with a grin, but it faded when she got a good look at me.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked. "Your cheeks are all red."
"Nothing," I said. "I told you I was hot."
"I don't see how when it's like ten degrees out here," she said, blowing into her hands to warm them up.
"Nothing," I said. "I just get all flustered when I see him."
"Who?" she asked with a confused expression. "When you see who?"
Silent night,
Holy night,
All is calm,
All is bright…
Everyone around us was singing loudly, but Kacie was slow to join in, and she continued to glance at me curiously between lyrics.
"Who, Owen Bishop?" she whispered. "Do you still have a thing for him?"
I glanced at the house, at the older couple that was peacefully watching us. I smiled stiffly and began to partially sing the lyrics of the song I knew so well, but I nodded as an answer to Kacie's question. We continued singing the song and went right into, We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
It wasn't until we finished both songs and were walking toward the next house that Kacie put her arm around my shoulders. "Do you seriously still have a thing for him?" she asked.
"It doesn't really matter if he's dating Abby Carter."
"I don't know for sure that he is," Kacie said. "We saw them out the other night, and someone at my table said he was dating Shelby's friend, Abby. I didn't hear whether they were talking about Owen or Liam, but I assumed it was one of them because they were both sitting there. I wasn't curious enough to ask."
I zipped my jacket and put on my hat as we continued to walk to the next house. "But there's only one way to find out," Kacie said in a resigned tone.
She took me by the arm, pulling me in the opposite direction and breaking me away from the pack.
"What are you doing?" I asked, stopping in my tracks.
"Come on," she said. She pulled me again and I jerked away from her. She looked over my shoulder at the lady who was in the back of the pack. "We'll catch up with you all," she said with a little wave aimed at the lady before looking at me. "Come on," she said. "We have to go back and check it out."
"We can't just go back there," I said. "That's preposterous."
"Preposterous?" she said, laughing. "Is that a word you learned at Cornell?" She continued to pull me in the direction of the Carter's house, and again I felt mortified as blood rose to my cheeks.
"No, it's not a word I learned at Cornell," I whispered as we walked.
"It sounds like it. It sounds really Ivy League to me …preposterous…" she said it again, this time with a fancy English accent that made me groan and laugh at the same time.
"Fine, you're being unreasonable, outrageous, ridiculous, Kacie. This is a terrible idea. We can't just go back there by ourselves. We don’t even know those people."
"Yes, we can. And we kinda do. Plus, I have an excuse."
"You better not embarrass me. What are you going to say? You don't have a plan. We can't just knock on their door."
"Trust me, Darcy. When have I ever steered you wrong?"
"What are you gonna do? Ask him to use the restroom? You can't do that. They know we're here with Mr. Sanders. They're going to wonder why we didn't just go back to his house."
"I'm not going to ask to use the restroom, Darcy."
"Then what are you going to do?" I asked.
She didn't answer. We approached the Carter's house, and Kacie began boldly walking up their sidewalk, but I stopped her by tugging her arm.
"Don't," I said.
"Please trust me," she said. "I promise I won't embarrass you." She stared at me with such sincerity that I had no choice but to go ahead and trust her. I took my arm off of hers, and she turned with a smile and headed toward the front door. I followed and came to stand next to her as she reached out for the doorbell. I clasped my hands and held them in front of my face, pretending to be cold but actually just blocking myself and feeling extremely nervous and shy.
A man opened the door—the one I remembered as Abby and Andy's dad. "Hey, Mr. Carter," Kacie said as soon as she saw him. "I'm sorry to bother you guys, but I was just here with the carolers, and I think I might have dropped my cell phone in your yard. I was gonna look for it out here, but I wanted to knock first and let you know."
"Oh, I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said, glancing around us with a caring, concerned expression. "You're welcome to take a look. I'll turn on the floodlights. Do you need any help?"
"No sir, I don't think so," she said. "I'm sure it's around here somewhere. Darcy and I went to school with Andy and Abby. They're a few years older than us, but we went to the same high school. I saw Liam and Owen were over here. We graduated with Owen."
"Oh, y'all went to MCA?" he asked. "What are your names?"
"Kacie Newman and Darcy Meyers. I'm Kacie, this is Darcy."
The man glanced at me with a wave. "Stephen Meyers's granddaughter?" he asked.
I nodded. "Yes sir."
"You've been studying at Princeton or something like that, right?"
"Cornell," I said, still cupping my hands in front of my face nervously.
"How's that going?"
"Good," I said. "I’m about to start my last semester."
"Congratulations," he said. He glanced at Kacie. "And you?"
"I'm a senior here at the U of M."
"Well, congratulations to you, too," he said. "Andy and his wife both went to U of M."
Kacie was just starting to say something more when Mrs. Carter walked up behind her husband, regarding us with a curious expression. "Are they back to give us an encore?" she asked, glancing at us and then at Mr. Carter.
"Miss Meyers dropped her cell phone when they were here a minute ago," he explained. "These girls know the kids from MCA."
"Oh, okay," she said, nodding and looking at us again. "Did you find your phone?"